I'm a privacy pragmatist, writing about the intersection of law, technology, social media and our personal information. If you have story ideas or tips, e-mail me at khill@forbes.com. PGP key here.
These days, I'm a senior online editor at Forbes. I was previously an editor at Above the Law, a legal blog, relying on the legal knowledge gained from two years working for corporate law firm Covington & Burling -- a Cliff's Notes version of law school.
In the past, I've been found slaving away as an intern in midtown Manhattan at The Week Magazine, in Hong Kong at the International Herald Tribune, and in D.C. at the Washington Examiner. I also spent a few years traveling the world managing educational programs for international journalists for the National Press Foundation.
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Why People Take Breaks From Facebook

According to a recent survey from Pew, 61% of Americans have broken their addiction to Facebook for whole weeks at a time. Pew calls these “multi-week breaks” from the the site “Facebook vacations.” Pew asked why these users broke it off with the site temporarily. Here’s how they responded:

In other words, 10% of people have friends in whom they’re not interested; 9% of people have horrible friends; and 7% of people have boring friends.

Given the frequent freak-outs over the privacy issues on the site, I was surprised that just 4% of those surveyed briefly abandoned the site due to “privacy/security/ads/spam” — a smaller percentage than the number who took a break from the site “just because.”

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It would be interesting to drill-down into the 96% who did not cite privacy as a reason (as well as the 39% who are so OCD about FB that they cannot take a break) to learn whether ignorance or nonchalance about the privacy issues is the reason.

Interesting article, I think that people just overall get extremely sick of FB. I remember that when Myspace was the In social network, people would check out but not as religiously as people are on the FB now a days. Do you have any predictions of what the next big social media site will be? And how long do you think FB will be in for? I am guessing that it will start to get unpopular in the next 5-7 years.

I shutdown my Facebook account because of my girlfriend. She’s insanely jealous and kept interrogating me about my female friends. Shit like: “Who’s this girl? How do you know her? When was the last time you talked to her?” I couldn’t handle it. Does that fall under the “Too much drama/gossip/negativity/conflict” category?

I am a little surprised “relationship reasons” didn’t make the cut. I think it’s safe to put yourself in the “conflict zone” though. I have to assume your girlfriend now assumes you don’t have a Facebook account so that she won’t see the digital evidence of your interactions with other women? People without Facebook accounts are said to be suspicious, after all….